All posts tagged ‘Battlestar Galactica’

Like many people of a certain age, I’ve had to become much more active in my health management than I once was. Back when I burned gazillions of calories playing football, hockey, lacrosse and hiking for miles at a time, my concern was more about keeping weight on than keeping it off. Fast forward a few decades, add kids (and their hectic schedules), sitting at a computer for much of the day, a fondness for the couch and shows like Battlestar Galactica, appreciation for a certain frosty beverage then throw in a torn ACL and a slowing metabolism for good measure. The result is not awesome. Tracking my weight is now something I need to worry about — to the point where I have a treadmill in my office and celebrate daily milestones like clearing my e-mail Inbox by throwing around weights for a few minutes instead of helping myself to another coffee. Being a somewhat tech-obsessed guy, when our bathroom scale died, I seized on the event as an opportunity to introduce some more technology to the weight management process: the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale.

One of the big advantages of systems like Fitbit is the fact that every piece of data you can feed into the system clarifies the picture. The wireless trackers are a key piece, providing information about your activity. Using an app to track your food intake is a second piece of critical data. Fitbit takes these two and plots them against each other so you not only see a cause and effect correlation, they can interact with the app helping you to plan your daily food intake.

For the record, my wife and I went with Fitbit’s Zip tracker (the least expensive at $59.95, although it’s 10 bucks cheaper at Amazon) since we wanted to try out the system before committing to a bigger investment. The Zips have been great, even if they lack the stair and sleep sensing capability of the Ultra. We use the free MyFitnessPal app (which integrates nicely with Fitbit’s website) since its food database includes an extensive selection of Canadian products.

As the name implies, you need a Wi-Fi connection to get the most out of the scale. Setting it up on the network was a two minute process, then we entered our names, the initials we wanted the scale to display to show it recognized us and an initial weight. From that point on the scale has recognized us as soon as we step on it. Guests can still use it (it simply falls back to being a regular scale at that point) and if you have identical twins in the house — as we do — they are required to take the additional step of tapping to confirm their identity.

The scale itself is an attractive slab of glass with a solid ABS base and is available in black or white. It sports a backlit display that flashes a range of information, including identification, weight, body fat percentage and status info such as uploading data.

Yes, the Aria measures body fat percentage. This requires barefoot use of the scale and is only available to registered users (you can have up to eight per scale, by the way); it doesn’t work for guests. Because there is (small) live current running through the scale as part of that body fat measurement, people with pacemakers and small children should avoid using it. I can’t say how accurate the body fat measurement is, but Wired’s Alexandra Chang says it was very close after her boyfriend had his body fat professionally measured. I can say that over the past month and a bit it’s at least been consistent — if it was all over the map, I’d be a little less sure of it.

The Fitbit Aria automatically feeds more data to your Fitbit account, making for a more complete picture. (image copyright Fitbit)

Although the Fitbit Aria is a good looking scale and its basic functionality alone probably makes it worth the $129.95 (which isn’t that big a premium over a decent standalone bathroom scale), it’s in the connectivity that it really shines. Step on this scale in the morning and all your stats are automatically uploaded to your Fitbit account and now that data is even more valuable. Combined with a Fitbit activity tracker and an app to track food input and the Fitbit Aria is a powerful weight management tool, much more than an ordinary scale. As part of your Fitbit account, you receive notifications of pending milestones and receive badges to recognize key goals. If that’s not sufficient motivation or you really like to share, you can set the thing up to tweet your stats or post them on Facebook.

Tired: If used as a standard scale it’s on the expensive side, kids under 10 and those with pacemakers can’t use it, tweeting your weight and body fat percentage marks the point where social media may have jumped the shark.

If you’re like me and my wife, you and your significant other have a few shows you both record and watch as a couple. Or you’re in the process of catching up on older shows you missed when they were live, binge-viewing episodes of Battlestar Galactica, The Wire or Breaking Badon HBO or Netflix. Right?

But what happens when one of you gets ahead of the other? When one of you, for whatever reason, knows more than the other about the arc of the season? Trouble! That’s what. While it might seem like the stuff of a Larry David running gag in Seinfeld or Curb, “Episode Drifting,” as I’ve coined it, can actually put real distance between couples. Continue Reading “The Case Against Episode Drifting” »

If you missed Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome online last fall, or its television premiere this month, look: Here’s not only another shot, but a chance to see even more of it.

The Blu-ray/DVD/digital edition of the movie, available Feb. 19, includes additional scenes that weren’t in either the web episodes or the Syfy broadcast, deleted scenes, and a behind-the-scenes special effects feature.

Focused as it is on a small cast and a linear plot, Blood & Chrome doesn’t reach the gut-punching and adrenaline-rushing moments that Battlestar hit when it was at its best, but it still manages an entertaining mix of full-on action, character development, and a good story that links the different BSG eras without straining to pull every single loose end together.

NBCUniversal has 10 Blu-ray combo packs of Blood & Chrome (with Blu-ray, DVD and digital editions) to give away to GeekDad readers! Enter your information in the form below to enter, or if the form doesn’t work for you, fill it in here instead. Only residents of the U.S. and Canada are eligible to enter, and all entries must be received by 9:00 pm Eastern Time, Thursday, February 21, 2013.

It is an ongoing thought, that has turned into a hashtag, that I wanted to share with my GeekDad community because I think you probably have a greater understanding of this than I do. The hashtag is #cylonnews, or it should be. Basically, I use it to tweet any interesting video or news report or information that captures our inevitable scientific push towards the creation of cylons.

Of course, they won’t be called cylons, they’ll be called something else, but essentially our technology is beginning to look more and more like robotic AI that brings about the (almost) destruction of humanity as represented in Battlestar Galactica. So, what does #cylonnews look like?

Considering how good the webisodes have been, I’m really disappointed that this is not going to be a full miniseries. The first two seasons of the updated Battlestar Galactica were fantastic, after all.

When I stumbled upon the geek music duo Debs and Errol via an indirect anonymous tweet, I really wasn’t prepared to review yet another self proclaimed “geek music” group. Thankfully for them, I never turn down the chance to check out new music, and if it ends up being terrible then so be it. However, Debs and Errol are something completely different. The Toronto based duo and their album Songs in the Key of Geek are probably the geekiest artists I’ve come across in a long, long time.

The musical comedy duo is Deborah Linden and Errol Elumir. Their website and corresponding webcomic is draped in geeky adorableness. I can’t say that it’s the funniest webcomic I’ve ever read — it’s not — but that’s not the point. It is, and I mean this in the nicest way possible rather than dismissive, neat. Realizing their creative output, between the comic and their music you can’t help but grin and say “neat.”

The best description I could think of for this album after listening to the whole thing was “geek showtunes.” With the exception of a couple songs, the album sounds like it could be a soundtrack for a geeky play. There is a playful banter in most of the tracks between Debs and Errol, highlighted by the spoken word bits in the songs. The album takes you right away to the geeky stage show with “Geek Love Song,” which gives numerous examples of how to say ‘I love you’ in geek language, such as “Wani ra yana ro aisha” (Vulcan).

QMX is well-known for their reproduction movie props, posters, and paraphernalia, but they have really outdone themselves on their recently-announced Viper replica.

The replica model is produced in excruciating detail, right down to the fully-functional cockpit DRADIS (a 9/16” OLED display that plays the actual DRADIS video used in Battlestar Galactica) and the white-noise generator that drives the lighting of the engines. Each model is hand-assembled and painted, representing 50 centars, er, hours of work by the QMX model-making artisans.

Oh — and did I mention that the Vipers are available as Adama, Starbuck or Fleet editions, and that each of the first two models are personally signed by Edward James Olmos or Katee Sackhoff?

So, what’s the downside on this gorgeous piece of Galactica goodness, you wonder? Sadly, the $1500 price is about an order of magnitude beyond the toy budget of any geek I know. Heck, for that much money you could get something practical like Stormtrooper armor…